St Abbs, training dive weekend
We all begin diving to get into the sea and to experience the underwater world and all its beauty. It is therefore very important to get new divers into the sea as soon as reasonably posible.
Being a landlocked club we have to organise our diving to ensure this happens so use weekends away and where better than St Abbs and thanks to Nick and Debbie for organising a trip, we were on our way.
Paul Crowe has a great set up at Dive St Abbs (Dive St Abbs – Diving Scotland – Boat Charters – Scottish Borders), it is ideally suited for all levels of diving. His operation is based in the centre of St Abbs, parking, an excellent dive boat within a few paces, a filling station, a bunk house, a BBQ and superb local knowledge. Not to mention the Ebb Carr cafe for lunch breaks.
The group of divers for this extended weekend ranged from instructors to trainees. Our purpose was to have some great dives whilst completing ocean diver training, giving experienced divers the chance to offer advice to these new divers, do some prep for further dive training (e.g. DL). Oh and to hunt for the elusive Wolf Fish.
Most of the dive group arrived on Thursday night with the remaining joining on Friday.
Fridays dives were a good start and our trainees performed well even though the visibility was limited. This meant that the first two dives were specifically training dives one at Pettiowick and the second off the Skellys. In the evening we piled up to the dependable New Inn for the evening meal and a few drinks to talk over the days diving.
On the Saturday we had a full complement of divers and headed out to Black Carr for a bit of Wolf Fish action. The visibility had improved and after a a good search we found a couple Wolfies as well as Nudibranchs, Wrasse, Lobsters and Crabs (to name a few). The next dive was off West Hurker and after investigating the cavern we headed to the pinnacle and encountered the large schools of fish, an amazing site. Back at base beer appeared and the BBQ was fired up with Mike taking on the cooking. Later we wandered round the harbour and took the traditional team album pose.
Sunday rolled around with a couple of divers opting to act as dive marshals as opposed to diving. We repeated our visit to Black Carr and once again found our Wolfies. The second dive was Skelly Hole and it proved to be a winner, as ever, with plenty of life and a gentle drift.
The weekend was excellent, Nick and Debbie organised it well and everyone enjoyed themselves and progressed their diving.
As usual I cant wait to return.
